Adrian Peterson Rehabbing Near Where He Lives
Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings take on the Houston Texans, at Reliant Stadium, the AFC South champion's 11-year-old, 71,000-seat facility. In addition to the many postseason ramifications at stake in the contest, without question, the game's dominant storyline involves Vikings running back Adrian Peterson's quest to break Eric Dickerson's NFL single season rushing record of 2,105 yards. With two weeks remaining in the 2012 regular season, the Minnesota superstar stands 294 yards shy of the mark, set by the Los Angeles Rams Hall of Famer, back in 1984.
Ironically, both Peterson and Dickerson are natives of the state of Texas, with AP growing up in Palestine (151 miles north of Houston) and Dickerson hailing from Sealy (51 miles west of Houston).
While the Viking icon resides in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, during the football season (home three miles south of Vikings' Eden Prairie headquarters), the Oklahoma Sooner alum spends much of his offseason in Houston, where he owns a condo in the city's Uptown district, the same neighborhood that hosts The Galleria shopping/business/hotel complex, the nation's seventh largest retail facility.
Peterson's Uptown condo sits eight miles northwest of Reliant Stadium, and perhaps even more importantly for Viking fans, seven miles west of the Memorial Hermann Sports Medicine Institute, the site of a large percentage of Peterson's ACL/MCL rehabilitation efforts. When not working closely with Vikings trainer Eric Sugarman (mostly in Eden Prairie, where AP spent portions of his offseason), the MVP candidate revitalized his body with renowned Houston physical therapist Russ Paine, as well as local trainer James Cooper.
The Memorial Hermann Sports Medicine Institute is part of the Texas Medical Center area of the city, the world's largest medical complex. The neighborhood is located immediately adjacent to both Hermann Park and Rice University, three miles north of the Reliant gridiron.
Peterson expects as many as 200 family and friends to be in attendance at Sunday's game, including his mother, who lives in a North Side of Houston abode. While calling Minnesota home for the active portion of his professional life, Peterson remains well connected to his home state, as well as his offseason and future fulltime city of residence.
"I love Houston. I love Texas. You can have the country, or you can have the city, and I love that. I love both. It's a good spot for me," explained the four-time All-Pro, during a media conference call, earlier this week.
One last note regarding AP's life and times in the “Space City.” For those of you wondering the location of the 27-year-old's July arrest, involving charges that were later dropped during the pre-trial phase of the case. On that fateful summer night, Peterson was hanging out at Live! at Bayou Place, a entertainment complex located in downtown Houston's Theater District, nine miles north of the Texans home field and eight miles east of the world's best running back's Uptown luxury pad.
